0:08

This is Antique. The

0:10

Atari is a podcast.

0:13

Hello, and welcome to

0:15

this interview-only episode

0:18

of Antique, the

0:21

Atari 8-bit computer

0:23

podcast. I'm Randy

0:25

Kindig, your host

0:28

for this episode.

0:30

Dean Garrity is

0:32

the proprietor of

0:35

DIGS software. which sold

0:37

and continues to sell

0:39

software for the Atari

0:41

8-bit computers since the

0:43

80s. This is a

0:45

very low-cost 191 disk

0:47

set that includes an

0:49

entire utility pack, games,

0:52

issues of a disk-based

0:54

newsletter, a sound and

0:56

music package, an

0:58

interesting programming language

1:00

called Quick, and more.

1:03

Dean has been an

1:05

Atari enthusiast since the

1:07

80s and has an

1:10

interesting story to tell concerning

1:13

his journey with the

1:15

Atari 8-bit. This interview

1:17

took place on April

1:19

6th, 2024. So I'm

1:21

here today with Dean

1:23

Garrity. Am I pronouncing

1:25

that right? Is it Garrity?

1:28

Dean is the proprietor of

1:30

a DGS software which has

1:32

software for the Atari Pit

1:35

computers. How are you Dean? I'm very

1:37

well, thank you very much. So

1:39

maybe you can start out just

1:42

by telling us where you live and

1:44

what you do today. Okay, I live

1:46

in Scotland. Quite a rural part

1:49

of Scotland in the middle of

1:51

a cow field basically. I'm impressed

1:53

your internet seems pretty good for...

1:56

I'm astonished it's this good to

1:58

be honest with you. often

2:01

it isn't. Basically

2:03

I've been working in

2:05

IT for 20 odd years

2:07

or whatever it is 25

2:10

odd years. More

2:12

recently from home

2:14

obviously because I live

2:17

in the middle of nowhere

2:19

now. At the moment I

2:21

just basically do part-time

2:23

pretty much. I moved

2:25

into... pretty much specialize

2:27

in public transport software

2:29

and that kind of

2:31

thing. So generally these

2:33

days I just sort

2:35

of consult with you

2:38

know any companies or

2:40

government departments that need

2:42

help with that on

2:44

a sort of part-time

2:46

consultant basis now. So I do

2:48

you know a little bit of

2:50

that and a little bit of

2:52

whatever I need to do to

2:54

live in the middle of nowhere

2:57

basically. Yeah, I'm sure that's a

2:59

challenge. Oh yeah. All right, can

3:01

you tell us how

3:04

you got involved with

3:06

Atari 8-bit computers back

3:08

in the day? Yeah, it's

3:11

a bit of a strange

3:13

story really. It was a

3:15

family friend, a friend of

3:17

my parents actually, and they

3:20

won an 800 Excel in

3:22

a raffle. And yeah, and

3:24

it was... it was always

3:26

the usual thing at the

3:28

time people were sort of

3:31

getting computers, whole computers from

3:33

wherever and whichever means and

3:35

knew absolutely nothing about computers.

3:37

So it was up to

3:39

me as has been many

3:41

cases it's like oh you

3:43

know things about computers you

3:45

could go around and help

3:47

him. I've never seen one

3:49

before at that point in

3:52

time I actually the Texas

3:54

Instruments TI 994A. That's what

3:56

I was using. Nobody I

3:58

knew had an Atari. They

4:00

weren't massively popular in the

4:02

UK. They weren't the sort of

4:04

go-to computer. That was always going

4:06

to be the zetic spectrum. It's

4:08

always going to be the Commodore

4:10

64, the VIG 20, those kind

4:12

of things. So it's quite unusual

4:14

that the whoever it was had

4:17

an Atari as a raffle price.

4:19

But I went round to have

4:21

a look at this thing. to

4:23

try and help him set it

4:25

up on one of you. And

4:27

I thought, hey, this is not

4:29

bad. This is quite a good

4:31

machine. It's probably better than the

4:33

TI-994A that I've got. So

4:35

after getting back for having

4:37

to look at his machine,

4:39

I thought, well, I probably

4:42

might want to get one

4:44

of these myself. And at the

4:46

time, the 800XL was in the

4:48

UK. It was being sold off.

4:50

very cheaply through a chain of

4:53

electrical retailers and they were bundling

4:55

it with a cassette recorder, a

4:58

joystick, loaded cassette tapes but not

5:00

a lot of money. I think

5:02

it was about 60 pounds back

5:05

then. So we're probably talking about

5:07

120 dollars now, something like that,

5:09

it would be. So that was

5:12

quite affordable for what you were

5:14

getting. You literally went and they

5:16

gave you a great big cardboard

5:18

box inside which was separate cardboard

5:20

boxes with the XL, the 1010

5:23

record, the joystick, the cassettes, the

5:25

manuals. So you got quite a

5:27

lot for your money and that's

5:29

how I basically ended up with

5:31

my first 800X. At that point,

5:33

just with a data recorder, the

5:35

disk drives came later because they

5:38

were quite expensive even at that

5:40

point. But that's how I actually

5:42

ended up with the Atari in the

5:44

first place. So did you

5:46

really, I mean at that

5:48

point, did that become your

5:50

main computer and did you

5:52

really immerse yourself in the

5:54

Atari, community, whatever community that

5:56

was, I guess, where you were at

5:58

the time? Yeah, absolutely. you know I

6:00

ended up getting rid of

6:02

the taxes instruments and just

6:04

keeping the Atari because this

6:06

was to be a more

6:08

usable machine really there was certainly

6:11

more software available and you know

6:13

I actually did find a good few

6:15

people in my local area at

6:17

the time when I was still living

6:20

in England who had one of these

6:22

things so you know you could get

6:24

together we had a... I remember we

6:26

used to have a weekly computer

6:28

club. type of thing in

6:31

the local area that met

6:33

in basically a pub. And

6:35

I used to go along

6:37

to that once a week

6:39

and use to sort of

6:41

swap things, you know, software

6:44

and stories and show each

6:47

of that do things and

6:49

that kind of thing. So

6:51

that was quite useful. So

6:54

I used to do that. So there

6:56

were other people around, so I knew

6:58

that, that was probably a better option.

7:00

There was certainly nobody I could ever

7:02

find who had a TI 99 4A.

7:05

That was, even, we were talking about

7:07

1985 at this point, that thing was

7:09

already dead in the water at that

7:11

point. In fact, it was dead in

7:13

the water before the thing were released

7:16

really. I don't think anybody really,

7:18

certainly not in the UK, because

7:20

they were shockingly expensive. secondhand or

7:22

some some guy down the road

7:25

for not a lot of money.

7:27

That's how I ended up with

7:29

one of those until the family

7:32

saw the light a year later

7:34

and a couple years later, you

7:36

know, go to the Atari. So

7:38

that's how that's what I came

7:40

about. But so I mean that's

7:42

that's my that's my background.

7:45

That's how I got into

7:47

this thing by accident really

7:49

I suppose. Yeah, yeah, sounds

7:51

like it. So tell

7:54

us about DGS software

7:56

and how that came about.

7:58

Yeah, I don't. Well it

8:01

started over at college

8:03

actually like lots of these

8:05

things tend to do. You

8:07

know I was doing a

8:10

basically a part IT part

8:12

business course at the

8:14

college and we were

8:16

always been taught business

8:18

and business techniques and

8:20

you know that kind

8:22

of thing and accounting

8:25

and what have you.

8:27

we were always sort of encouraged

8:29

to sort of look at the

8:31

business side of the world and

8:33

what of you and I thought

8:35

well okay I'm using this machine

8:38

I'm writing bits of software for

8:40

it here and there and wouldn't

8:42

it be fun to try and sell

8:44

some of these things and so I

8:47

started pretty basic really I

8:49

think I put an advert in a

8:51

magazine said I've got some software,

8:54

you know, send a stamp to

8:56

dress the envelope as we did

8:58

at the time before the internet

9:00

and you know I'll send you

9:02

a list of what I've got

9:05

and rather shockingly to me people

9:07

started sending me checks. So that

9:09

kind of worked and then after

9:12

that I went off to university

9:14

and carried on doing the

9:16

same thing but sort of

9:19

expanded it because you've I

9:21

suddenly got old of this wonderful

9:23

thing called the internet and this

9:25

was pretty worldwide web date of

9:27

course we were still in the

9:29

sort of used net groups and

9:32

news things and emails pretty much

9:34

what we had. But that gave me

9:36

an opportunity to meet some people

9:38

in other countries for the first

9:40

time to communicate with them

9:42

and see what kind of things they

9:45

had. It also got me access to

9:47

some sites with software on, you know

9:49

so I was able to get access

9:51

to a lot of things that didn't

9:53

have before. That's pretty much

9:55

how the public domain library

9:57

came about. So I started.

10:00

selling public domain basically out

10:02

of my dorm room which

10:04

again is where a lot of businesses

10:06

start as we know and so

10:09

I was you know I had

10:11

the dorm room there on the

10:13

university campus and one side of

10:15

it had my bed and the

10:18

other side of it had boxes

10:20

piled up with the tari software

10:23

in hardware and I was basically

10:25

running a small business out

10:27

of a dorm room. for a little

10:29

while and when I finished the

10:31

university I carried on basically

10:34

but you know it expanded

10:36

out to other things other computers,

10:38

PCs and hardware and supply general

10:41

supplies and all those kind of

10:43

things as well with the Atari

10:45

sort of starting to dwindle

10:47

a little bit sort of by sort

10:50

of mid to well mid 90s really

10:52

it became... much more of a niche

10:54

market. So, you know, it was important

10:57

to have the other things as well.

10:59

But that's pretty much what happened there.

11:01

It's just, you know, something that we

11:04

were encouraged to do at college to

11:06

see, you know, to look at business

11:08

and rather do it in sort of

11:10

theory, which is what we were doing.

11:12

I decided to try to practice because

11:14

I thought I'm going to learn a lot

11:17

more and you most certainly do. Yeah,

11:19

I'm sure. So that was all

11:21

PD software at the time and

11:23

you would just copy the

11:25

PD software onto disks and

11:28

send that out to people?

11:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty much. And

11:32

then, initially, a lot of

11:34

the PD was my own

11:37

software. I'd actually written the

11:39

stuff myself. In fact, the

11:41

first four or five disks,

11:43

maybe more, were just things

11:45

that I'd put together, a

11:48

programmer in practice really. I

11:50

mean that's what I was doing. I

11:52

mean I was learning programming and you

11:54

know I have this you know a

11:56

little machine of my own and put

11:58

the two together and started writing it's

12:00

a software to practice writing

12:02

software really and then I

12:04

thought well some of this isn't too

12:06

bad if I put it on a

12:08

disk you know and advertise it and

12:10

basically give it away as PD maybe

12:13

people will want it and it turns

12:15

out they did basically yeah so was

12:17

that all in basic it was basically

12:19

your primary language yeah yeah I did

12:21

a little bit of machine code here

12:24

in there but yeah basic is is

12:26

what I did and then we got

12:28

turbo basic came along which was really

12:30

sort of revolutionary for me because that

12:33

allowed me to do a lot of

12:35

all things that otherwise you'd have had

12:37

to have done a machine code which

12:40

you know was a much more bigger

12:42

prospect than just writing high-level language so

12:44

you know turbo basic for I think

12:46

that was German that came along and

12:49

you know I started around a bit

12:51

more things in that so the couple

12:53

a little bit more advanced and that

12:55

kind of thing yeah that's why I

12:57

did. So, amazingly, you

12:59

still sell some software

13:01

packs today. Can you

13:03

tell us about that

13:05

a little bit? About 20

13:08

or so years ago, I

13:10

decided to get old of

13:13

an SIO to PC board

13:15

and started converting all the

13:17

disks into ATR files, you

13:20

know, that kind of thing.

13:22

And I thought, okay. maybe

13:25

people still want these things so

13:27

I initially it was a CD

13:29

and I started doing a CD

13:32

with them all on and the

13:34

manuals were all converted into PDF

13:36

files and that kind of thing

13:39

and started selling a CD. The

13:41

problem is with the CD as

13:43

I found out as time went

13:46

by the costs of sending a

13:48

physical CD out especially abroad started

13:51

just to become... more expensive than what

13:53

the the actual disc was worth. The

13:55

pack was worth, you know, it's just

13:58

got increasingly expensive as postal charge. just

14:00

sent it to the mobile internet

14:02

basically and that's what it is

14:04

today. People don't need a physical

14:07

CD anymore that's just a waste

14:09

of money really. So perhaps it's

14:11

an idea instead of sending out

14:14

a CD is to put all

14:16

of it into a big zip

14:18

file and let people buy that

14:21

and just send it to them

14:23

over the internet basically and that's

14:25

what it is today. It's a

14:27

collection of my own commercial bits

14:30

of commercial software. The software that

14:32

we got from Germany from PPP

14:34

and a company in the UK

14:37

called Rambit who used to do

14:39

a turbo load board that went

14:41

into the 10-10 data recorders so

14:43

that you could load things at

14:46

high speed but they also did

14:48

some software as well. So I

14:50

got an agreement with the guy.

14:53

who ran that and wrote the

14:55

software that we could use bits

14:57

and pieces on this in this

14:59

pack which he agreed to and

15:02

the same with PPP in Germany

15:04

they they were quite happy that

15:06

it went in this thing so

15:09

there's quite a collection of things

15:11

including the quick programming language from

15:13

Germany which is you know quite

15:16

a popular thing there their 80

15:18

column a desktop system which looks

15:20

a little bit like gem that

15:22

kind of thing on my own

15:25

stuff and from Rambit we have

15:27

a print file which is well

15:29

the useful piece of software never

15:32

never did well outside of the

15:34

UK though for some reason but

15:36

it that's a nifty piece of

15:38

software that basically captures the print

15:41

output from any bit of software

15:43

word process or whatever it captures

15:45

what you send to the print

15:48

and puts it into a file.

15:50

so that you can then print

15:52

without having the original software around

15:54

so you can just give it

15:57

to anybody and it keeps all

15:59

the formatting commands and whatever you're

16:01

in there and you can even

16:04

edit different files together from all

16:06

sorts of different files. different packages

16:08

and whatever and then print them

16:11

out and again put them into

16:13

a file so there's that kind

16:15

of thing in there. The PD

16:17

library is not in the in

16:20

that zip file but I've got

16:22

that on my website so if

16:24

anybody wants what used to be

16:27

the old PD library a couple

16:29

hundred disks by the time it

16:31

came to an end that's available

16:33

on the website for free. The

16:36

software pack itself that's available... to

16:38

anywhere for $7 US, which is

16:40

basically just essentially it's a token

16:43

payment really just to help keep

16:45

the site running. There's no profit

16:47

in this really. Yeah, and it's

16:49

just the cost of sending it

16:52

out and that kind of thing,

16:54

you know, it goes over and

16:56

I normally send them out over

16:59

wheat transfer. It's a pretty simple

17:01

thing for people to just pick

17:03

them up from that, you know,

17:06

as people want them. So that's

17:08

what the software pack is and

17:10

that's still available. The quick programming

17:12

language, if people want that separately,

17:15

they can buy that for $5

17:17

separately or again, you know, for

17:19

$2 more, you can have everything.

17:22

So it's really down to what...

17:24

Yeah. And that really caught my

17:26

eye because I love programming languages

17:28

and I saw that quick programming

17:31

language. Can you tell us a

17:33

little bit more about that and

17:35

exactly what is that and how

17:38

that works? Yeah, sure. It was

17:40

originally a German piece of software.

17:42

and it was available in Germany

17:44

for a few years, late 80s,

17:47

but it never really went outside

17:49

of there. I'd certainly never heard

17:51

of it. I found the guy

17:54

who wrote it, the guy called

17:56

Haron Schuldfeld, who was at the

17:58

university in the UK. So we

18:01

found each other over the internet

18:03

somewhere or other, and got chatting

18:05

online. And he mentioned that he

18:07

had some software. and included a

18:10

programming language and I said well

18:12

look you know what about releasing

18:14

this thing in other countries and

18:17

the problem at that point is

18:19

all the documentation were in German

18:21

so that's going to be a

18:23

problem so I said luckily I

18:26

mean unfortunately I don't speak a

18:28

word of German but he spoke

18:30

perfectly good English so he ended

18:33

up roughly translating English so he

18:35

ended up roughly translating the manuals

18:37

into English send them over to

18:39

me and I basically edited them

18:42

and sort of polished them a

18:44

bit to make them more usable

18:46

sort of thing and started selling

18:49

it initially in the UK. We

18:51

were going to look for or

18:53

he were going to look for

18:56

someone to license it to in

18:58

other countries but in the end

19:00

I just took on the license.

19:02

for everywhere except German speaking countries.

19:05

So I was able to sell

19:07

it basically anywhere that didn't speak

19:09

German. It's quite a nifty language.

19:12

It's a shame it wasn't available

19:14

earlier outside of Germany. I think

19:16

it wasn't quite popular. But it's

19:18

certainly not basic. It's more. in

19:21

the lines of something like maybe

19:23

Pascal, that kind of type of

19:25

thing. It's certainly more structured, you

19:28

know, it's got elements of C

19:30

in there, that kind of thing

19:32

as well. So, but it is

19:34

high level. It's not, you know,

19:37

it's certainly not machine language. Although

19:39

you can actually put machine language

19:41

in if you want to, but

19:44

you can do all sorts of

19:46

clever things with it. You know,

19:48

he designed it as such a

19:51

way that you can write things

19:53

like interrupts. in a high level

19:55

language and just put them in

19:57

the code and it will run

20:00

them in interrupt rather than having

20:02

to do everything in the machine

20:04

language. So it certainly got some

20:07

key advantages. over basic, it's multiple

20:09

times faster than basic. Many times,

20:11

you know, if you benchmark them

20:13

together, this kind of thing. And

20:16

it comes with the original PDF

20:18

documentation that I edited and need

20:20

translated, but it also comes with

20:23

a disk full of example code.

20:25

and clever libraries and things that

20:27

you can use to add functionality.

20:29

So I mean anybody who's doing

20:32

any kind of programming still, hobby

20:34

programming as well these days on

20:36

the Atari, could certainly benefit from

20:39

using that. It is well documented.

20:41

There's a lot of example code

20:43

and there's a lot of documentation

20:46

with it. So I don't think

20:48

anybody should have any difficulty. Certainly

20:50

if you use any other sort

20:52

of high level. program language or

20:55

the basic you should be okay.

20:57

That's why I'd say that. Yeah,

20:59

I certainly intend to take a

21:02

closer look at that language. It's

21:04

just interesting and as you said,

21:06

it's too bad it didn't come

21:08

out earlier. It might have caught

21:11

on a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

21:13

But now there's things like fast

21:15

basic and turbo basic that you

21:18

mentioned. You know, there's lots of

21:20

options for development today. So, yeah.

21:22

Nevertheless, it's certainly worth taking a

21:24

look at a look at. So

21:27

to get your software packs, you

21:29

just go to your website and

21:31

you can just purchase them pretty

21:34

easily there. I knew I went

21:36

through the process and didn't have

21:38

any issues whatsoever. And then you

21:41

get a link and you can

21:43

download it. Pretty simple. Yes. I

21:45

mean, it's all paper with PayPal.

21:47

So they do all the payments

21:50

process in the one of you.

21:52

Yeah. So there's no issues there.

21:54

As soon as I. you know,

21:57

get notification that you've ordered it.

21:59

It goes via we transfer and

22:01

you should get it, you know,

22:03

usually within a few hours unless

22:06

I'm middle than night and sleep

22:08

or something but it's you know

22:10

within 24 hours I'm usually all

22:13

well always within 24 hours it

22:15

should should go up to you

22:17

just one point with a website

22:20

it's it's a it's a fairly

22:22

old website it's basically a bit

22:24

of free space that I got

22:26

from the ISP it's not a

22:29

HDTPS website still an HDTP the

22:31

only problem with that is chrome

22:33

with that is chrome with that

22:36

is chrome any version of chrome

22:38

doesn't like it unless you specify

22:40

HTTP on the front you will

22:42

get unable to connect message because

22:45

it assumes that it's an HTTPS

22:47

these days unfortunately and that's just

22:49

chrome. Firefox Edge and the others

22:52

are quite happy just to work

22:54

with it but for chrome users

22:56

out there just just make sure

22:58

you specify HTT before the web

23:01

address if you're not doing a

23:03

search on it through Google or

23:05

something like that. Right, so I'm

23:08

curious, I expect you don't get

23:10

a ton of activity, but I

23:12

mean, do you still get interest

23:15

in in these software packs? Yeah,

23:17

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean,

23:19

I, you know, I also get

23:21

some I get odd emails from

23:24

people who have bought something or

23:26

found something and it's missing software,

23:28

disks, manuals, whatever and you know

23:31

I still get quite a number

23:33

of emails from people saying you

23:35

know I bought this on eBay.

23:37

Have you any idea what it

23:40

is? Have you got the disks

23:42

for it? Have you got the

23:44

manuals? And sometimes I have. as

23:47

it turns out, because I bought

23:49

a lot of stuff myself, you

23:51

know, sometimes it can help people

23:53

out sometimes. It turns out that

23:56

they've got the wrong person entirely.

23:58

You know, a board ex-wise, have

24:00

you got the manual for it?

24:03

That would never one of my

24:05

products. You get that occasionally. People,

24:07

I think people just Google. I

24:10

just Google, you know, who still

24:12

does Atari things and then, you

24:14

know, on the first on the

24:16

list or whatever, they just emailed

24:19

me, you know, for the best.

24:21

So yeah, you don't get a

24:23

surprising number of people who found

24:26

things on eBay or at some

24:28

computer show that they've gone to

24:30

or whatever and found some gadget

24:32

and it's missing anything so they

24:35

don't know what it is and

24:37

I'm usually the one that the

24:39

email for help. So I mean

24:42

yeah there's there's still interest there's

24:44

still a lot of people out

24:46

there certainly a lot of people

24:48

on the Atari Age website which

24:51

I sometimes contribute to if I

24:53

I've got something to say or

24:55

help with or whatever there's still

24:58

quite a number of people using

25:00

using there and swapping information on

25:02

you know how to do this

25:05

amount to do that so yeah

25:07

I mean there's obviously a lot

25:09

of people even after all these

25:11

years 40 plus years of these

25:14

things are still They're still out

25:16

there and they're still interacting with

25:18

these things and they're still using

25:21

them which is which is great

25:23

really I suppose, isn't it? I

25:25

mean, yeah, I don't think I'll

25:27

be using this laptop I'm using

25:30

in 40 years time, certainly not.

25:32

Probably not. Probably not. So, so

25:34

you mentioned your Atari age, so

25:37

you're pretty involved still with the

25:39

Atari bit community today? Yeah, yeah,

25:41

when I have the time. You

25:43

know, I see what people are

25:46

saying. What they've got, what they've

25:48

got, people are still developing gadgets,

25:50

I've noticed things, you know, card

25:53

readers and gadgets to plug in

25:55

and emulate disc drives and all

25:57

sorts things. And that's... Fugeenet. Sorry?

26:00

Fugeenet. Fugeenet. You're not familiar with

26:02

Fugeenet. It's a... It basically to

26:04

get your Atari on the internet

26:06

and use virtual drives over the

26:09

internet. Really? Okay, I missed that.

26:11

Yeah, you have to take a

26:13

look at that. Good Afterwell, that

26:16

sounds fascinating. Do you ever attend

26:18

any computer shows? No, I just

26:20

look too far away. You know,

26:22

it takes me, you know, 24

26:25

hours just to get from where

26:27

I live into sort of middle

26:29

part of England. Oh wow. Yeah.

26:32

There's a lot of transport involved.

26:34

So, wow, that sounds pretty cool.

26:36

Yeah, it can be. It's not

26:38

something on the day and how

26:41

bad the weather is. You know,

26:43

when you've been unfortunately get, we're

26:45

known to have winds in excess

26:48

of 130 mile an hour in

26:50

this part of the world. Yeah.

26:52

During the winter. And that can

26:55

get scary. Yeah. So I don't

26:57

get to get chance to travel

26:59

too much. So what Atari hardware

27:01

do you have today? I mean

27:04

you still have some Atari computer?

27:06

Yeah, yeah, I've got all the

27:08

usual things. I've got a couple

27:11

of 800 Excels, 130XC, some 1050

27:13

drives. And my my trusty old

27:15

replay sound sample cartridge. that, you

27:17

know, we're putting 1987 and still

27:20

works well. I've had a good

27:22

use out of that, built a

27:24

lot of software around Sound Samplid

27:27

over the years, so that's certainly

27:29

got its use and its value.

27:31

I had an SIO to PC,

27:33

but unfortunately it failed on me,

27:36

so I've got to make sure

27:38

I get another one of them

27:40

at some point, probably USB one

27:43

next time. Is that the Atari

27:45

Max version or is that just

27:47

a USB cable? Yeah, it was

27:50

the Atari Max, I think. Yeah,

27:52

okay. It was a long time

27:54

ago, because it was an old

27:56

RS-232 version. And unfortunately, RS-232 ports

27:59

are becoming a bit of a

28:01

rarity. They definitely are. You're not

28:03

going to find them on modern

28:06

computers that's for sure. That's really

28:08

about all the questions I had.

28:10

Are there any other questions I

28:12

should have asked that that you'd

28:15

like to bring up? No I

28:17

don't think so. I don't think

28:19

so much about this. Anything else

28:22

you'd like to say to the

28:24

Atari community that's listening to this

28:26

podcast? Yeah, I just say keep

28:28

on using the machines for as

28:31

long as they'll survive. You know,

28:33

even if for nostalgic purposes, which

28:35

is sometimes what I do, you

28:38

know, I like to, you know,

28:40

if you've got a particularly bad

28:42

day, it's sometimes fun to pretend

28:45

it's 1985 again. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

28:47

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I mean

28:49

if the things keep going, keep

28:51

using them, that's what I'd say.

28:55

Is there anyone that you knew

28:57

from back in the day that

28:59

you can suggest that I talk

29:01

to that might be an interesting

29:03

interview as well? I don't think

29:05

there are to be honest. I

29:07

mean there were a few people

29:10

who used to come with me

29:12

when we used to do computer

29:14

shows because we used to do

29:16

the all micro show as it

29:18

was called in the UK which

29:20

they held once twice a year

29:22

and a lot of Atari people

29:24

used to exhibit there. and we

29:27

exhibited there for many years, 1989

29:29

through to 97 I think it

29:31

was, so every year. A few

29:33

guys used to come along there,

29:35

but pretty much lost contact with

29:37

all these people now. I've not

29:39

spoken to them for well over

29:41

20 years to be honest, so

29:44

I don't know if they've still

29:46

kept up with this or whether

29:48

they've, you know, hold on to

29:50

their Atari equipment and they're still

29:52

involved, so I don't, I'm not

29:54

sure to be honest with you.

29:56

I don't think they're all. Okay.

29:58

So do you want to reiterate?

30:01

I don't know. remember if you've

30:03

mentioned it or not but you

30:05

want to reiterate any the link

30:07

to your website for the listeners?

30:09

Yeah I mean my website again

30:11

you go to put the old

30:13

HTTP in front of the using

30:15

club it's just W-W-W-W-W-D-S-Klara-C-L-A-R-A-A-A-N-net that's my

30:18

website. Another one of interest if

30:20

anybody doesn't know it, is page

30:22

6.org. That's page and number 6.org

30:24

and that's a brilliant archive of

30:26

the old page 6 New Atari

30:28

User magazine which was the main

30:30

key magazine in the UK which

30:32

were published as a Glossy magazine

30:35

for many years and a guy

30:37

who used to write extensively for

30:39

that has created that very very

30:41

nice website and he's got all

30:43

the scans of the magazines all

30:45

the issues and all the issue

30:47

disks available in there on there

30:49

as ATR files and that kind

30:52

of thing and that's a really

30:54

good resource. Because I used to

30:56

write on articles for page six

30:58

as well so... Oh just some

31:00

of my... yeah there's some of

31:02

my early early articles in there

31:04

about this that the other bit

31:06

of software that I used to

31:09

do for them and some articles

31:11

on other things so that's always

31:13

nice to see. if anybody wants

31:15

to have a look at that

31:17

too. Did you ever write an

31:19

article for antique or analog or

31:21

any of those magazines? No, I

31:23

didn't. There was a, what was

31:26

he, there was a, what is

31:28

it called, Atari Classics, I think,

31:30

there's a magazine that were put

31:32

out. Early 90s, a couple of

31:34

guys. Apex. Oh, not deepx. Ben

31:36

Poland, I think his name was.

31:38

And he, they did a magazine.

31:40

I think it was called Atari

31:43

Classics, but no I never did

31:45

anything for any of the US

31:47

magazines unfortunately now. Okay. All right,

31:49

well that's all I have. today

31:51

Dean I really

31:53

really appreciate your

31:55

time in talking

31:57

about this and about

32:00

this let you let

32:02

you when it

32:04

gets published and

32:06

you can listen

32:08

if you'd like. can

32:10

listen if you'd like. Other

32:13

than that Other the rest of your

32:15

day the hopefully I'll get

32:17

a chance to talk

32:19

to you later. a chance to talk

32:21

to you later. very much. thanks

32:23

you much. All right thank you Dean. Bye.